Time's Children
by Id42
Summary: My first attempt at a serious fic. This takes place after the events of Chrono Trigger, and begins in 1013 AD. PG13 for violence and occasional language. ^^
1. Prologue

Time's Children  
by Id_42 (Id_42x@hotmail.com)  
  
One thing I feel I should mention is that in this fic, Crono talks. This is because I hold to the theory that he's not really a mute, and doesn't talk in the game for effect- if he doesn't talk, the player relates to him more. *shrugs*  
  
This is my first attempt at a serious fic, so if it sucks, that's why. Any comments would of course be welcome. ^_~  
  
This is also a work in progress. Not only is this all I have done (well, I might not have uploaded a chapter or two at any given time.. but my chapters are short), but I'll also probably edit what's here at least a couple of times. So if you notice anything that.. I don't know, sounds awkward or out of place or something, please tell me. ^_^  
  
Please note: for the most part, I don't own these characters. I certainly don't own the world. The one character as of yet that *isn't* owned by Square is Raine, and I took her name from another Square game anyway. I'm just borrowing these characters, and I'll return them alive.. mostly. Don't sue; I'm broke. ^^;  
  
- - -  
  
Crono sat at his desk, working on his household's finances. It was boring work, but he was happy. Living here (which happened to be a small house in Guardia) with his wife and daughter was his idea of paradise. He scribbled away happily, frowning occasionally as he stopped to do some calculation. To his right, a console lit up, one of Lucca's contraptions. Her face appeared on the small screen.  
"Crono, it's time for lunch," said the miniature face.  
"On my way," he replied, and left the office, humming.  
  
Lucca and Raine were already at the table when Crono got there, chatting idly as they waited for him to arrive. From the sound of it, Raine was having trouble with her math studies again, and Lucca was trying to help her. A plate was set at his place at the table, with what appeared to be a roast rolly sandwich, Lucca's specialty, sitting on it. As he sat down, she smiled at him.  
"So, what have you been up to today?" she asked.  
"Oh, just some office work. It's boring, but I suppose it has to be done.. work before play, and all that," he said around a mouthful of sandwich.  
"Nothing strange from the chronograph, right?"  
Crono looked puzzled. "Of course not. Why, is something wrong?"  
"No, nothing's wrong," she said as she went back to her meal. "I just saw something strange last night.. it was probably nothing, though. Just a glitch, I'm sure."  
"Yeah, that's probably what it was," he replied.  
Raine piped up. "Dad, we're still on for my lesson this afternoon, aren't we?"  
"Of course. Been practicing your forms?"  
"Yeah!" she said. "But I've been having trouble with Heron Wading in the Rushes."  
"Well, that's a tough one," he laughed. "I'll help you with it after lunch."  
  
Crono stood across from his daughter in the practice yard, wooden katana in hand.  
"Okay, let's start out with some sparring. Show me what you've got."  
"Sure!" smiled Raine, assuming a fighting stance. Crono flew at her, bringing his weapon down. She parried with a loud crack of wood on wood. Crono twisted his wrist, preparing for a strike to the side. At that moment, his watch let out a high shriek. He withdrew and looked at his wrist: an orange light was pulsing insistently.  
"I'm sorry, Raine, but this is going to have to wait," he said, and took off at a run.  
The orange light wasn't actually so bad, in the grand scheme of things. If the light had instead been red, he would have grabbed Raine and fled the house, heading for the hills. As it was, he only needed to hurry to his study as quickly as possible. Still, it signified some event of catastrophic proportions, that needed to be dealt with immediately.  
When he got to his study, Crono stabbed a button on the console. "What's going on?!" he demanded.  
A woman's voice responded in monotone. "There has been a time stream contamination, level 5, class 2."  
  
- - - 


	2. Chapter One: The Beginning

- - -  
  
Crono's breath caught in his throat. Temporal contamination. That meant that what he, Lucca, and the others had worked so hard for years ago, their descendants' futures, was being threatened. To most people, this wouldn't matter; the past or future would be changed, and they'd never know the difference. Crono and the others, though, were different. They were the Chosen of Time, the protectors of the timestream. It was their duty to make sure that nothing went wrong, and that history went as it was supposed to. This, then, was a major disaster.  
He leaned over the machine. "When and where did the contamination take place?"  
The computer beeped and a timeline replaced the standard readout. Two points were marked: the present, and...  
"The contamination will occur approximately seventeen minutes from now, on the Guardia continent. Relative location: Guardia Castle."  
Crono blinked a few times. "...Give me a feed from the stream, six seconds before the contaminant hits."  
The timeline vanished, to be replaced by a bluish color with multicolored static playing over it. Something, unrecognizable through the static and distortion, screamed slowly by.  
"Freeze that. Can you clean the image up a little, and resolve that object?"  
The static disappeared, and the blur left onscreen slowly shrunk and moved together into the center. As it resolved, it became recognizable as a face. A plain-looking face, with thick, flowing light brown hair.. and an eyepatch.  
"Dalton," Crono breathed.  
  
Lucca rushed home as soon as she got the signal from the monitoring systems. She found the door to Crono's study open. He was hunched over his console, staring at whatever it was displaying.  
"Sorry I took so long to get here," she said. "I was out shopping.. what happened?"  
"Contamination, type 5-2, Guardia Castle. It's going to happen in about.. fourteen minutes."  
"We can't get there in time, can we?"  
"No, we can't."  
"Damn." She collapsed into a chair. "Well... do we know anything about the contaminant?"  
"Take a look," he said, gesturing at the screen. A face was frozen there, vaguely familiar, but she couldn't quite place it. Then it hit her.  
"Dalton..."  
"Exactly."  
"But.." she struggled for words. "Isn't he dead?"  
"I had thought so. Doesn't look that way, though, does it?"  
"I suppose we ought to head over to the castle, anyway, and observe the aftermath.."  
"Yeah. Who knows? Maybe he just dropped in for some tea."  
  
The trip to the castle was a long one, but wholly uneventful. It was a beautiful spring day, sun shining, birds chirping, and all that, but Crono and Lucca hardly noticed. Nothing else matters when your world is in danger. So on they marched, through Guardia, into the forest, and up the castle's steps. When they reached the gate, Crono addressed the guards.  
"Excuse me, sirs, but we have urgent business. We need to speak with the Queen."  
"Crono?" said one of the guards in disbelief. "I haven't seen you in a long time, lad. But of course you're always welcome here." He opened the gates.  
Crono and Lucca hurried inside, and Crono yelled to the guards standing around. "This is an emergency! Search the castle! If you find a man with an eyepatch, bring him to me!" He turned to Lucca. "Come on- let's find Marle."  
They ran through the main hall and up the many flights of stairs leading to the Queen's chamber. They marched past the servants in the hall and threw the door open. There was a blinding blue flash. Crono blinked a few times to clear away the spots. When his vision cleared, he saw that the room looked exactly as it should... except for the fact that the Queen was lying on the floor, her dress stained red with blood.  
"Marle!!" he shouted.  
  
- - - 


	3. Chapter Two: A Call To Arms

- - -  
  
"Oh my god... oh god, no," whispered Lucca. Crono knelt to examine Marle's body. After a moment, he stood up and turned back to face Lucca, shaking his head.  
"We were too late," he said. "She's dead."  
"No..." she sobbed, tears streaming down her face. "Why would anyone want to kill Marle?"  
  
Two days later, the shadow of Marle's death still hung in the air. Raine, who was too young to really understand death (and hadn't known Marle very well anyway), didn't know what to make of the whole awkward situation. Crono had been busying himself studying Dalton's past, so as to not have to think about what had happened. Lucca had been moody and quiet; Marle had been her best friend. She had kept mostly to her room since the incident- which was where she was, sitting on her bed, when Crono walked in.  
"Hey," he said softly. "How are you doing?"  
She smiled sadly. "I've been better." She paused. "What about you? Have you found anything out?"  
"Not a thing. I don't understand.. Dalton was an egotist, a narcissist, an insensitive, stupid bastard.. but not a murderer. I just can't see what would have motivated him to kill Marle.." He sat down on the bed next to her. "We're going to get her back, you know."  
She looked up at him. "I know we will, Crono." Her face hardened with icy determination. "First, though, I'm going to track that bastard down.. and I'm going to kill him."  
  
The best first step, they decided, would be to search Marle's chamber, to see if they could find anything that might lead them to Dalton. Failing that, they'd want to comb the future, starting at around 3000 AD and working their way backwards. Crono and Lucca armed and armored themselves, and loaded themselves down with analysis equipment for their trip into time. They left Raine in the care of her grandmother and headed off to Guardia Castle.  
A maid approached them as they entered the castle. "You'll be wanting to see to the Queen's room, I presume?" She went on when Crono nodded. "Follow me, then. We haven't touched a thing in there, since.. well, we thought you might want to investigate the place."  
Crono and Lucca followed the stout woman through the castle and up the stairs. She left as they opened the door to Marle's room. Her body was missing, but everything else was left exactly as it had been.  
"Let's get to work, then, shall we?" said Lucca, taking out an apparatus.  
They searched the room top to bottom, opening drawers, poking things, scanning things, and generally examining the contents of the room. It was slow going; there was much to be searched. Nothing turned up of note on or in Marle's desk, or anywhere else she might keep papers and such. nothing that would explain why someone would come through time to kill her. After a long while, Lucca found something.  
"What is it?" asked Crono.  
"Trace soil residue, almost certainly from his boots."  
"How can you tell?"  
"Look at the composition. Judging from the materials present, it's got to be from some time in the far future. I'd say it fits what exists now in 2300. Or wat did exist, anyway.. who knows what's there now. Let's check it out." She reached for the Time Key at her belt.  
"Wait a second, Lucca."  
"What?"  
"It could be dangerous. Don't you think we should get some reinforcements?"  
"You're right," she said. "But we can only take one person, or the field might become unstable.. you know. I'd bring Robo, but he might not even exist, and if he does it might be dangerous where he is.."  
"Let's see.. Ayla's not exactly the right person for the job."  
"No, definitely not."  
"Magus?"  
"We probably won't be able to find him, with his search for Schala, and all. And even if he's found her, who knows where they'd be?"  
"I guess we take Glenn."  
"To 600 AD, then," said Lucca, raising the Time Key. She activated it and they were engulfed by a globe of blue light.  
  
They arrived in Guardia Castle, 600 AD, a short while later. A woman, presumably the Queen, gaped at them in disbelief as they appeared.  
"Sorry, ma'am, just passing through," Crono assured her. "Do you know where Sir Glenn is?"  
The woman's mouth hung open for a moment. "He's... he's probably i-in the.. soldiers' mess."  
"Thank you. We'll be leaving, now," said Crono, and they exited the room. They walked downstairs and into the mess hall, ignoring the odd looks and occasional outright stares people gave them. They spotted Glenn eating at a small table in the coner, and went to sit down next to him."  
"Crono, Lucca!" he said. "It's good to see the two of you. How goes it?"  
"Badly," replied Lucca. "There was a time contamination... Datlon showed up, killed Marle, and left. We're going to hunt him down and make him pay, and we'd like you to come with."  
"Dalton... but.. is not that knave dead?!"  
"We thought so," said Crono, "but it looks like he's not."  
"Marle.." Glenn said softly. Then he spoke up. "Of course I will go with thou." He drew his sword. "Let us away!"  
"Sounds good to me," agreed Lucca. She activated the Time Key again, and they disappeared in a flash of blue light.  
  
- - - 


	4. Chapter Three: The End Of The World As W...

- - -  
  
They arrived in a small clearing. The landscape was unfamiliar to them; the ground was soft and tannish, the sky a faint purple, and the air had a strange tang to it. All around them grew strange plants, huge piles of foliage and flowers that reached past any of their heads. There were also a few trees, with weird smooth trunks that sent out massive roots in all directions. Nowhere to be seen were any signs of civilization, or even of human habitation. Though hardly barren, the place seemd strangely to be devoid of life.  
"My god.. where are we?" asked Glenn.  
"The Time Key only allows travel through time, not space. Makes me wish we still had the Epoch around, sometimes. That means that this must be the location of Guardia Castly..." Lucca looked around. "What happened to this place?"  
A bizarre, low rumble split the air.  
"What was that?" shouted Crono. He pulled out his katana frantically.  
"I'm sure it's nothing can'st takes the likes of the three of us," replied Glenn.  
"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Lucca put in. "Listen. It's getting louder."  
The rumbling sound was getting louder, and the intervals between rumbles lower. Suddenly, a huge beast tore through the greenery behind Glenn, leaving a trail of leaves and broken branches. It stopped, sniffed a couple of times, and looked at the three of them. Glenn spun around.  
"Oh, shit," he said.  
  
The thing stood there. The three humans were absolutely motionless as it stared. It was immense, probably massing about the same as Crono, Lucca, and Glenn combined. It had four thick legs terminating in blunt, heavy paws. Its midsection was dense-looking, but it didn't look fat so much as strong. It had a short snout, out of which it was emitting long bursts of warm breath.  
After sniffing them for a few moments, it decided they weren't food, and moved on. It charged away through the brush.  
"Wh-what," Crono breathed, "was that?!"  
"I do not think we really wish to know," replied Glenn.  
"Me either," he decided.  
"You know, guys, we aren't making any progress standing around here. Let's go," said Lucca.  
"Dost thou have any ideas on just where we shall go?" inquired Glenn.  
"Actually," she said," I do. Arris Dome was about a mile south of here, and for all we know it still is. That's as good a place as any to start."  
"All right, let's go!" Crono replied.  
They gatehred their things and started walking south, through the hole the whatever-it-was made when it charged into the clearing. The landscape never changed. The plantlife was suffocating, crowding in all around them on both sides and stretching on as far as they could see. After about an hour of waling, the plants broke away, and open ground stretched before them.  
In the distance, there was a big green-and-brown mound. As they got closer, they realized that the mound wasn't any form of local vegetation.. but rather some sort of primitive shelter. It was large enough to house a good number of people. A village?  
"So there are people here.." said Crono.  
"Not necessarily people as we know them. Be on your toes, guys," Lucca advised.  
"Right."  
  
- - - 


End file.
